Don't Panic
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: A plan gone wrong, and Molly discovers that Sherlock has a thing for assertive women. Birthday gift for Petra Todd.


**Disclaimer****: **I own nothing related to _Sherlock. No copyright infringement intended._

**Beta'd by:** Emcee Frodis

**Don't Panic**

**1**

Heart pounding in her chest, lungs burning, Molly Hooper pressed against the brick wall of the dark alley. Her feet ached in the heels she was wearing, and she was wondering if she shouldn't have heeded John Watson's repeated muttering of '_This is a very bad idea...' _before she'd left 221b with Sherlock Holmes that night. Cold nipped at the exposed skin of her arms, back, shoulders, chest; her breath was visible silver puffs in the dark.

She'd agreed to The Very Bad Idea without much question; a stupid move on her part. The red dress clung to Molly's slight frame, her hair pulled up into a high ponytail and she gripped the out-of-place, oversized black bag tightly. Heavy footsteps lumbered down the alley toward her and Molly pressed herself closer to the rough brick, wincing as the stone scraped small lines of hurt across her pale skin.

The Very Bad Idea had been Sherlock's (as they always were), and his brilliant idea had been to use Molly as bait. Spruce her up and plant her in the upscale pub, and wait to see if the man he'd been looking for went for it.

Molly hadn't counted on it actually _working_.

She supposed that it only fair that she helped; she was the one to convince Sherlock to take the case. The client had come to 221b that afternoon; his wife had been assaulted while on her way home from having a few drinks with her friends. She'd been badly injured and remained in hospital, in slow recuperation. The police had found nothing at which Sherlock snorted, completely unsurprised and Molly could tell that he was on the verge of dismissing the case as _boring_, unable to interpret the anguish his potential client was in.

Really, she had accepted for him. Molly had been unable to completely ignore the surprised and mildly outraged look Sherlock had given her when she'd said, _"He'll do it." _She was fairly sure that the way his eyebrows had climbed his forehead would have been comical if the full force of those icy blue eyes hadn't been directed at _her_. However, he didn't dispute her interruption and had begun planning.

The footsteps grew closer and Molly swallowed thickly around her panic. _Sherlock would come, he would be here. They had a _plan. However, the man they were after was too close for comfort, and there was still no sign of the detective. Pushing down her panic, Molly tried to formulate an _alternate_ plan.

**2**

_Some Months Earlier_

When Sherlock began asking Molly to come around his flat, she didn't question it too much. At least, not outside of her own head where anyone could hear. It was always for something silly, something generally trivial. Things that he could very well do on his own, but most of the time couldn't be bothered.

The first time he asked her to bring a few fatty livers for some experiment that he'd never bothered to explain. Molly was fairly certain she didn't want to know after he'd dropped the first organ into a pan that had been heating on the cooker.

The second time, he'd texted her, asking if she could bring a few of her old files by Baker Street for a case he was working on; very important, he'd said. Life or death. When she'd arrived, Sherlock was in the shower, and John hadn't been aware of any new cases.

It was around the fifth time, when he'd asked her to bring him milk from the market that she began to get more than mildly irritated.

And then he'd texted her, saying that it was urgent that she come to 221b right away. When she'd arrived, and he'd asked her to make a pot of tea, Molly finally lost her head. She'd been rooting around in his cluttered but generally hygienic kitchen looking for the container of loose leaves when she realized what she was doing, threw the tin canister she'd finally found at his head and left.

His messages went unanswered after that.

**3**

In the filthy, damp alley, Molly pushed herself away from the brick wall, and into plain sight.

The creep they'd been after grinned, and said, "There you are, sweetheart." He licked his bottom lip, grabbed her upper arm. A large, calloused hand wrapped around her, nails biting into her skin.

Molly clocked him in the side of the head with her heavy bag. His eyes went wide, and he staggered on his feet but didn't let go of her arm. She was pulled along with him, and she began to panic all over again.

**4**

_'John is out, and I'm bored.' -SH_

_'You're insufferable is what you are. Amuse yourself.' -MH_

_'Please, Molly?" -SH_

_'I can't come over there, I'm at work.' -MH_

_'Dull.' -SH_

_'After?' -SH_

_'Fine, but if you just want me to make tea again, I'm going to hurt you.' -MH_

_'You're more than welcome to try.' -SH_

Molly turned her mobile off and stowed it in the top drawer of her battered metal desk. In all actuality she was nearly done with her shift, only one name left on her list and then she could leave. She couldn't tell _him _that, though. One thing Molly had learned about Sherlock, if he became used to something, he'd take advantage of it. Besides, someone needed to tell him no sometimes.

John tended to generally buckle under, out of sake for his own sanity. Molly herself was guilty of it in the past, but after that last tea incident, she'd decided that she'd had enough. The first time she'd answered his request for her to bring a fresh heart to his flat with a simple text: _'Sod off.'_, Sherlock had come to the hospital, sure that something had happened to her. Such as someone kidnapping her and trying to lure him there using her phone.

Sherlock tended to have an overinflated sense of self-importance.

When he'd found her rummaging around in the open chest cavity of a thirty-two year old male, blue paper mask in place over her face and a quirked eyebrow, he'd turned around and left.

Later, John told her that he'd pouted for two days.

Molly hung up her lab coat, tucked her hospital ID into her bag, and caught a cab to Baker Street. When she arrived, she found Sherlock in his chair, knees pulled to his chest, watching telly. On the cluttered table, in a cleared spot that was surrounded by piles of books and papers, was a steaming pot of tea, two cups, milk and sugar.

"Did you make tea?" Molly asked, somewhat unbelieving what she was seeing.

"Of course not. Mrs. Hudson brought it up."

_Sure _she did.

Molly made a cup, settled in John's chair, and wondered what in the _hell _she was doing there.

**5**

Molly opened her mouth to shout for help, but the moment she did the man who was gripping her arm with bruising force shoved his tongue between her lips.

And that's when Molly went from panicked, to _seriously _brassed off. Her anger surged to the surface, like mercury in a thermometer, and Molly's hands curled into small fists. Simultaneously, she bit down on his tongue and swiftly brought her knee up, rearranging vital dangly bits. Metallic tasting blood flooded her mouth, and Molly shoved him away from herself, spitting and gagging.

The still unknown-to-her man slumped to the ground, groaning in pain, and Sherlock came wheeling around the corner into the alley. Molly had her head halfway in her bag, digging around for the tissues she kept in there. She furiously scrubbed at her mouth, trying to wipe away the taste of his spit and blood.

She caught sight of Sherlock coming toward her, and Molly's eyes narrowed.

"You ass! Where w_ere _you?" She slapped at his arm, soiled tissue balled in her hand. "We had a _plan_, Sherlock! It was a good plan! And guess what, _that wasn't it_." Molly gestured wildly toward the suppliant body laying on the filthy ground.

"Seems you handled yourself well enough."

"_That's not the point!" _

**6**

Molly became a regular fixture around 221b. She wasn't quite sure what was going on with Sherlock and why he seemed to want her _around_, but they seemed to have settled into something that resembled friendship.

Oh, it was nothing like he had with John; the relationship he shared with the Army Captain bordered on dangerously codependent. But she certainly found herself brought into their little family fold; John, Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson. And Molly.

She baked with Mrs. Hudson; John taught her how to shoot a gun. She brought Sherlock things to keep him occupied, and sometimes he kissed her.

The first few times, it was an absent manifestation of excitement. He'd have some sort of break through, and lay one on her before rushing off, leaving her blushing and confused in his wake.

**7**

The anger and adrenaline were draining from Molly's system, and that sick panic feeling was back, building low in her throat. She wrapped her arms around her own cold form and listened to Sherlock speaking low and quickly on his phone, to someone at the Yard, she presumed.

Shivering, eyes welling with tears that refused to be quelled no matter how hard she tried, Molly just wanted to go home. Sherlock and John could keep this whole blasted detective business; she'd stick with her dead bodies, _thank you. _

Suddenly she was surrounded by warmth, and realized that Sherlock had stripped his coat off and draped it around her. He pulled her close to his chest, and Molly only let her surprise keep her still for a moment before she pressed into the hard planes of him. She flicked her tears away with a shaky hand.

"Calm down," Sherlock murmured in her ear. "You're just coming down from the adrenaline, it'll be alright."

"I know _that _you great sod." She chuckled, watery and small. "I was scared."

"I know."

"Damn it, where _were _you?"

He didn't answer.

**8**

As she'd done many times before, Molly stayed the night at 221b. By the time she and Sherlock had returned, it was near midnight and since Sherlock had no plans of sleeping that night, she stole his bed. After a shower, she lay on her side, looking over the familiar structure of the Table of Elements, listening to John and Sherlock talk in the sitting room.

"What happened?"

"Things went a bit... off plan."

"I _told _you that it was a bad idea. I love Molly, I do, but-"

"Oh no, she was... marvelous. Took down that cretin singlehandedly."

Molly shifted in the bed, pulling the covers to her chin.

"Still, it was stupid and dangerous."

"_John_. I had a handle on the entire situation, honestly I'm surprised. Do you really think I'd let Molly get hurt?"

She jerked slightly in Sherlock's bed; he'd been there the entire time? She'd been scared, and in danger, and he'd just _watched. _

Molly wasn't sure why she was so surprised. Maybe it was because she thought that Sherlock was her friend; maybe it was because of the kisses. Either way, she was more than a tiny bit hurt and so angry that it had her blood fairly boiling.

When she finally went to sleep, it was hours later and fitful at best.

**9**

Molly left 221b the following morning, and proceeded to ignore Sherlock for a week. She couldn't decide whether she was being childish or not but she was _angry, _damn it. His texts were deleted, she avoided him at the hospital, even going so far as to hide in a broom closet to dodge him.

So maybe she was being a little silly, but she'd trusted him. And despite what he said to John, she _did _get hurt. Molly always got hurt by Sherlock. Danger may have been how Sherlock got his kicks, but it certainly wasn't hers.

**10**

One week after the incident in the alley Molly left Bart's in a deluge of rain. By the time she reached her flat, she resembled a drowned kitten and was dripping puddles of water all over the floors. After a shower and a change into clean knickers and an oversized shirt, Molly sat on her couch resolutely thinking about how much she did _not _miss that flat on Baker Street. Or its stupid piles of books, and stupid skull, or John and Mrs. Hudson. Most of all she did _not_, absolutely did _not _miss Sherlock Holmes.

Only, maybe she did.

A loud and insistent knock made Molly jump.

"Where have you been?" Sherlock demanded when she opened the front door. "Why have you been avoiding me? Why aren't you wearing trousers?"

He was staring at her bare legs and Molly blushed to her toes, but didn't retreat. She stood in the door way, fingers twisting in the material of her shirt.

"What do you want, Sherlock?"

"Answers to my previously stated questions, for starters," he said, still staring at her knees. _Honestly_, it wasn't like he'd never seen a set of naked legs before.

"You're a jerk, that's why." Molly turned from the open door.

Sherlock sighed, stepping into the flat, closing and locking the door behind him. "You heard what I said to John that night, didn't you?"

Molly returned to the sofa, tucked her legs under and pulled her shirt over her knees. "Was it some type of... test? I- I don't understand why you didn't help me, Sherlock."

He opened his mouth, but Molly cut him off before he could. "And if you say you were bored, I will brain you."

"I like women who can defend, stand up for, themselves. I wanted to see what you could do," Sherlock said, scowling down at the floor from where he was sitting on the other side of the sofa.

"So it _was _a test. That's _sick_-"

"I was quite impressed," he cut across her.

Molly glared at him, silently fuming. What was _wrong _with him? More importantly, what was wrong with _her_? She'd never met a man that she wanted to slap and snog at the same time. Sherlock looked almost startled when her glare melted into an alarming smirk.

"Assertiveness, huh? That's what you like, Sherlock?"

"I-" He snapped his mouth shut as she quickly settled herself astride his lap. Molly's smile grew positively delighted when she felt the growing bulge in his trousers and she pressed back against him.

"I'd say you were impressed." Molly pressed her mouth to his, and Sherlock kissed her back briefly before grasping her shoulders and pushing her back lightly.

"Molly, what are you doing?"

"Asserting myself," she said, before taking his bottom lip between her teeth, biting softly, before sliding her tongue over the hurt and kissing him.

Sherlock's hands left her shoulders and settled on Molly's lower back, making a choked sound deep in his throat when she pushed back against him again.

Internally, Molly was panicking. What in the hell did she think she was _doing_? She wasn't this woman; strong, confident, the kind to take what she wanted. She was _Molly Hooper_, the girl who spent half her life in a morgue, and wore kitten jumpers and lusted after a man she couldn't have.

Only, she thought, maybe she _was _that strong girl. Sherlock was a groaning, squirming, tentatively thrusting mess underneath her, and the power she felt was overwhelming. Especially as she reached between them and flicked his belt through the metal buckle and released his cock from his pants and trousers, and took him in hand.

Sherlock jerked his hips, practically fucking her hand as she tried to work him. His motions sent a lightning shock of anticipation through her middle. Molly tore her mouth from his.

"Do you want to fuck me, Sherlock?"

She kissed his neck to hide her blush, but satisfaction surged when his breath hitched, and he answered, "Y-yes."

Molly grinned, then nipped at his collar bone- _who was stammering now_?

Racking her mind for more dirty talk, Molly came up empty, and then decided that actions spoke louder than words anyway. Sherlock went still as she pushed up on her knees and just shoved her knickers to the side, brushing the tip of his cock against her clit.

Pressing her mouth to his, Molly sank down his length. Sherlock wrapped an arm fully around her and steadied Molly as she moved over him. His mouth left hers and strayed across her jaw and down her neck, latching on and sucking so hard just under her collarbone that Molly knew there would be a mark later.

She couldn't find it in herself to care just at that moment, though. Her hands slid into his hair as their movements became frenzied. The pressure in Molly's body mounted, pleasure swirling inside of her until she came apart, gripping his curls for leverage.

Molly's body was fairly numb as Sherlock took over, fingertips digging into her sides as he thrust up into her.

"Molly, _Molly,_" Sherlock siad through clenched teeth and grabbed a fistful of her hair, maneuvering her mouth to his. He kissed her hard enough for her teeth to bite into the soft of her own lips, and his hips stuttered as he pushed her own upward and came against the smooth flesh of her thighs.

They collapsed together, mindless of the stickiness between them, breathless and mildly surprised.

"Not that I am complaining," Sherlock said against her sweaty temple, "but would you mind explaining? I'm not familiar with that particular type of encounter. I thought you were angry with me."

"I was," she panted into his chest. "That was make-up sex."

"Wouldn't that imply that we're in some type of a relationship."

"Yes, it would."

"And when, exactly, did that happen?"

"About ten minutes ago."

Sherlock brought Molly in for another kiss, and she could have sworn that when he sighed against her mouth, it sounded nearly content.


End file.
